Mortgage broker - ask me anything

K_S

Girlisgettingthere said:

Hi looking for help on adverse lender. My partners credit file has no defaults/late payments etc but mine has 2 registered defaults (end of 2019) both satisfied and a late payment marked in March 2023. We are using the sale of property for a 15% deposit for new home and paying off all of our credit cards. I know I likely don’t allow us to have high street lenders but our broker has matched us with precise and looking at their reviews I’m worried about likelihood of getting an offer. Would we have other options?

@Girlisgettingthere Unless there's some reason to doubt your broker's recommendation you should be fine with Precise.

There's no guarantee of an offer but there's really no reason for a broker to put in all the effort of making a recommendation, packaging a full application etc. if they weren't reasonably confident of getting it to offer. 

I wouldn't pay much credence to reviews of a lender. If the product the lender is offering meets your requirements and you're happy with the terms then that's all there is to it.

K_S

thehet said:

Bought 3 years ago for £135k. After a year I take secondment job in the US, so i rent the place out. Shortly thereafter my fixed term of circa 2.5% finished and it moved onto variable rate which now sits at 8.7% and continues to go up. It appears I cannot remortgage while it is rented out/and not a UK resident (unless going for a Expat mortgage). I have chucked some money at it whilst away, and now owe £77k with 12 years left. 

Advice on whether to pursue a possible remortgage, expat or otherwise, throw some more money at it to bring the total down some more, or both? Likely to be stateside for another couple of years. 

Thanks ya'll

@thehet 77k is probably below the minimum loan size for the likes of Skipton International who offer the kinds of expat products that might match your circumstances.

I couldn't say what's best for you, but given the loan size, in your place I'd probably just keep plugging away with overpayments.

FindMyWayBack

Hi, what can you tell me please about the HOLD/OPSO schemes? Specifically fees/deposits/accessing them/eligibility etc. etc. Thanks.

cupcake43

I've got a few questions about an impending remortgage after speaking to a broker yesterday.

Currently on a tracker at .26% above base with Barclays which we decided to take about at the start of this year after coming off a 2yr fix.

With the narrative changing over the last few weeks around inflation and swap rates and interest rates I thought now was a good time to explore the 2yr fixed options out there.

We're in a fortunate postition that we're at 60% LTV and have residual income to ride any quick changes, but I'm trying to now balance the longer term.

Going through the MSE comparison and MSM comparisons I've seen deals that are better than what the broker offered, but the broker kept saying to not look at the headline rate of a deal and look for the overall cost over the 2yrs.

When I've compared the overall cost of the 2yrs though the online deals are looking better and £35 a month cheaper.

The only other thing the broker kept advising was to look for deals with cashback so that we could use our own solicitors as the free ones appointed by the lender are usually not as good and take longer and he provided a quote for solicitors fees of circa £700.

Starting to wonder if the online deals are the same as the broker ones, have I just picked a dud broker or what's the point in using a broker?

Example offeres

MSE and MSM site

Offer at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall 2yr cost of £22k

Broker 

Offer 1 at 5.54% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22.5k with £300 cashback
Offer 2 at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22k with £250 cashback

Apart from the cashback I can't see the difference in DIY v Broker.

K_S

@cupcake23 If you can find a cheaper deal (based on a total cost including balance outstanding) on the MSE mortgage finder (which should show the vast majority of all direct and broker deals available) than what's being recommended by your broker, just go for that or ask the broker if they can get that for you.

With Barclays, also check the existing customer (Reward) rates available to existing borrowers, they're often quite competitive.

With respect to free legals, I also often recommend that my clients opt for cashback and instruct their own solicitor BUT only if they/I can find a quote which is covered by the cashback if that makes sense. But increasingly that's been hard to do as cashback has gone down and conveyancing costs have steadily gone up since COVID so most of my clients currently just opt for free legals so they're covered on that front.

cupcake43 said:

I've got a few questions about an impending remortgage after speaking to a broker yesterday.

Currently on a tracker at .26% above base with Barclays which we decided to take about at the start of this year after coming off a 2yr fix.

With the narrative changing over the last few weeks around inflation and swap rates and interest rates I thought now was a good time to explore the 2yr fixed options out there.

We're in a fortunate postition that we're at 60% LTV and have residual income to ride any quick changes, but I'm trying to now balance the longer term.

Going through the MSE comparison and MSM comparisons I've seen deals that are better than what the broker offered, but the broker kept saying to not look at the headline rate of a deal and look for the overall cost over the 2yrs.

When I've compared the overall cost of the 2yrs though the online deals are looking better and £35 a month cheaper.

The only other thing the broker kept advising was to look for deals with cashback so that we could use our own solicitors as the free ones appointed by the lender are usually not as good and take longer and he provided a quote for solicitors fees of circa £700.

Starting to wonder if the online deals are the same as the broker ones, have I just picked a dud broker or what's the point in using a broker?

Example offeres

MSE and MSM site

Offer at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall 2yr cost of £22k

Broker 

Offer 1 at 5.54% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22.5k with £300 cashback
Offer 2 at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22k with £250 cashback

Apart from the cashback I can't see the difference in DIY v Broker.

cupcake43

K_S said:

@cupcake23 If you can find a cheaper deal (based on a total cost including balance outstanding) on the MSE mortgage finder (which should show the vast majority of all direct and broker deals available) than what's being recommended by your broker, just go for that or ask the broker if they can get that for you.

With Barclays, also check the existing customer (Reward) rates available to existing borrowers, they're often quite competitive.

With respect to free legals, I also often recommend that my clients opt for cashback and instruct their own solicitor BUT only if they/I can find a quote which is covered by the cashback if that makes sense. But increasingly that's been hard to do as cashback has gone down and conveyancing costs have steadily gone up since COVID so most of my clients currently just opt for free legals so they're covered on that front.

cupcake43 said:

I've got a few questions about an impending remortgage after speaking to a broker yesterday.

Currently on a tracker at .26% above base with Barclays which we decided to take about at the start of this year after coming off a 2yr fix.

With the narrative changing over the last few weeks around inflation and swap rates and interest rates I thought now was a good time to explore the 2yr fixed options out there.

We're in a fortunate postition that we're at 60% LTV and have residual income to ride any quick changes, but I'm trying to now balance the longer term.

Going through the MSE comparison and MSM comparisons I've seen deals that are better than what the broker offered, but the broker kept saying to not look at the headline rate of a deal and look for the overall cost over the 2yrs.

When I've compared the overall cost of the 2yrs though the online deals are looking better and £35 a month cheaper.

The only other thing the broker kept advising was to look for deals with cashback so that we could use our own solicitors as the free ones appointed by the lender are usually not as good and take longer and he provided a quote for solicitors fees of circa £700.

Starting to wonder if the online deals are the same as the broker ones, have I just picked a dud broker or what's the point in using a broker?

Example offeres

MSE and MSM site

Offer at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall 2yr cost of £22k

Broker 

Offer 1 at 5.54% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22.5k with £300 cashback
Offer 2 at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22k with £250 cashback

Apart from the cashback I can't see the difference in DIY v Broker.

Awesome, thanks so much for your reply, it genuinely does help with my thought processes.

The bit that's making me thing if a broker is worth it for me is that the last one we had as part of the remortgage in Feb basically did the bare minimum. We seemed to do all the leg work with paper work and dealing with the lenders solicitor. It certainly didn't take any stress out of the process.

I've done some calcs as well to compare what our monthly payments would be if we stuck on our tracker for a bit longer to ride out the increases up to what the current news outlets are predicting of around 6%, and we'd still be in a place to afford that increase.

Obviously, the risk with that is if by the time it reaches 6% things still look a bit gloomy and potential further increases, then our fixed options would be incrementally worse as well.

It feels like such a dilema at the moment. Damned if you do, damned if don't kind of situation.

K_S

@cupcake43 It is tricky but at least as you're pretty flexible being on an ERC-free tracker.

And there are still a few things you can consider doing to give yourself some optionality - consider getting a mortgage offer from lenders that effectively give you an offer validity of over 6 months eg: NatWest (6+1 months), Nationwide (can reserve a product for 90 days at DIP + offer validity of 6 months + 15 days), Platform (6+3 months validity on offer), Skipton/Leeds (6+6 months validity) etc. That way perhaps you can hedge your bets a bit. All these lenders offer free valuations and if you add any lender product fee to the loan, there's no risk of losing any money in case you don't go to completion.

cupcake43 said:

K_S said:

@cupcake23 If you can find a cheaper deal (based on a total cost including balance outstanding) on the MSE mortgage finder (which should show the vast majority of all direct and broker deals available) than what's being recommended by your broker, just go for that or ask the broker if they can get that for you.

With Barclays, also check the existing customer (Reward) rates available to existing borrowers, they're often quite competitive.

With respect to free legals, I also often recommend that my clients opt for cashback and instruct their own solicitor BUT only if they/I can find a quote which is covered by the cashback if that makes sense. But increasingly that's been hard to do as cashback has gone down and conveyancing costs have steadily gone up since COVID so most of my clients currently just opt for free legals so they're covered on that front.

cupcake43 said:

I've got a few questions about an impending remortgage after speaking to a broker yesterday.

Currently on a tracker at .26% above base with Barclays which we decided to take about at the start of this year after coming off a 2yr fix.

With the narrative changing over the last few weeks around inflation and swap rates and interest rates I thought now was a good time to explore the 2yr fixed options out there.

We're in a fortunate postition that we're at 60% LTV and have residual income to ride any quick changes, but I'm trying to now balance the longer term.

Going through the MSE comparison and MSM comparisons I've seen deals that are better than what the broker offered, but the broker kept saying to not look at the headline rate of a deal and look for the overall cost over the 2yrs.

When I've compared the overall cost of the 2yrs though the online deals are looking better and £35 a month cheaper.

The only other thing the broker kept advising was to look for deals with cashback so that we could use our own solicitors as the free ones appointed by the lender are usually not as good and take longer and he provided a quote for solicitors fees of circa £700.

Starting to wonder if the online deals are the same as the broker ones, have I just picked a dud broker or what's the point in using a broker?

Example offeres

MSE and MSM site

Offer at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall 2yr cost of £22k

Broker 

Offer 1 at 5.54% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22.5k with £300 cashback
Offer 2 at 5.09% 2yr fix - total overall cost of £22k with £250 cashback

Apart from the cashback I can't see the difference in DIY v Broker.

Awesome, thanks so much for your reply, it genuinely does help with my thought processes.

The bit that's making me thing if a broker is worth it for me is that the last one we had as part of the remortgage in Feb basically did the bare minimum. We seemed to do all the leg work with paper work and dealing with the lenders solicitor. It certainly didn't take any stress out of the process.

I've done some calcs as well to compare what our monthly payments would be if we stuck on our tracker for a bit longer to ride out the increases up to what the current news outlets are predicting of around 6%, and we'd still be in a place to afford that increase.

Obviously, the risk with that is if by the time it reaches 6% things still look a bit gloomy and potential further increases, then our fixed options would be incrementally worse as well.

It feels like such a dilema at the moment. Damned if you do, damned if don't kind of situation.

missyp123

Hello, 
I would be grateful if I just could just get some clarification on a product transfer we are looking at with NatWest. 

6 months early current rate due end November this year. 

We are keen to get a Fixed rate that we can still  afford now before they get worse. Even though it’s an increase of over £200pm 

If we take the early rate offered to us now the new product wont start until our current one ends in November? 

I don’t want to agree and have the new rate replace the old one immediately🙈 

Im 99% sure it won’t but I have to double check for my own peace of mind! 

It’s a Sunday I wont sleep tonight and can’t call them😫

Ty for any replies 

 

missyp123

Ive just spoken to NatWest (45 mins on hold🙈) they have said I’m right that it won’t start until the old product ends. 

She also said I can call and change if the rates go down In the mean time (not that I can see that happening). And I’d get a product fee refund within 10days.

Now to decide between the 2 and the 5years 🙈

more swayed to lock in the 5 years with the fee and over pay by the higher amount we could have afforded anyway so that would be an increase of £165 on the 5 years rate but we could over pay around £75-100 pm on top of that.  

I’m sure anything is worth it right?🤷🏽‍♀️

asbing

Hi, hoping someone could help me regarding getting a mortgage and credit score, does anyone know what credit score is required? i am currently on 850 on experian and a broker said 900 is required? is this the case? is it best if i wait till my score increase to proceed with the application, halifax rejected our first application as my score was "low" but my partners is above 900